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Self-organized porous anodic alumina (PAA) formed by electrochemical anodization have become a fundamental tool to develop various functional nanomaterials. However, it is still a great challenge to break the interpore distance (Dint) limit (500 nm) by using current anodization technologies of mild anodization (MA) and hard anodization (HA). Here, we reported a new anodization mode named “Janus anodization” (JA) to controllably fabricate self-ordered PAA with large Dint at high voltage of 350–400 V. JA naturally occurs as anodizing Al foils in citric acid solution, which possessing both the characteristics of MA and HA. The process can be divided into two stages: I, slow pore nucleation stage similar to MA; II, unequilibrium self-organization process similar to HA. The as-prepared films had the highest modulus (7.0 GPa) and hardness (127.2 GPa) values compared with the alumina obtained by MA and HA. The optical studies showed that the black films have low reflectance (<10 %) in the wavelength range of 250–1500 nm and photoluminescence property. Dint can be tuned between 645–884 nm by controlling citric acid concentration or anodization voltage. JA is a potential technology to efficiently and controllably fabricate microstructured or hybrid micro- and nanostructured materials with novel properties.

BiVO has been identified as one of the excellent visible light responsive photoanodes for use in photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting. However, pristine BiVO usually exhibits relative low photocatalytic properties owing to insufficient charge separation and transport characteristics. Although the marginal n-type doping of higher valence ions can obviously raise the photocurrent value, it by no means improves the PEC stability. In this work, we successfully enhanced the PEC stability of BiVO by doping Fe ions in substitution of Bi. Density functional theory calculations have illustrated that Fe-doping would result in an impurity band in the forbidden gap, and thus narrow its energy gap. More importantly, Fe-doping can synergize with other means to further improve the PEC activities of BiVO . Therefore, we fabricated a nanoporous Fe/W co-doped BiVO photoelectrode, and then loaded the metal-organic framework (MOF) MIL-100(Fe) as cocatalyst to further promote the separation of charge carriers. To the best of our knowledge, MOFs have not yet been utilized as a cocatalyst to facilitate the charge separation, which could increase the photocurrent density of Fe/W co-doped BiVO .

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Two types of carbon dots were prepared by using the powder of young barley leaves as the precursor, which have the capability of selective cell imaging and antiviral activity.

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We present a series of bisimidazole-based conjugated porous organic polymers (POPs) (BisImi-POP@1−6), which were formed by the CuI(I)−KOH/KOH-catalyzed cross-coupling reaction between the 2,2′-bisimidazole monomer and aryl halides. For iodine capture, the resultant POPs with a large number of imidazole N-heterocycle units in the skeletons can be used as effective adsorbents, which exhibit high iodine capture capacities

Herein, we demonstrate that Fe2O3 nanorod photoanodes modified with P-doping and a MnO2 oxygen evolution cocatalyst exhibited a remarkably enhanced PEC water oxidation activity.